Some twenty years later, FFVII's game world remains gorgeous. Invented logos flicker on failing monitors, propped up among shopfronts and lodgings quilted together from urban junk. Light glitters on seawater where it hugs coastlines of jutting pylons. A patchwork of little flowers swell up from the broken floorboards of an abandoned church. The backgrounds are always gently lit with dusty sunbeams, sulfurous haloes, or the weird light of the decaying planet's breath—the light of someplace that really exists, someplace that you’ve absolutely just got to escape to.
Do you remember the stairs of the ShinRa building, the ones that went on forever? Do you remember being a man in a dress, swarmed by zombie-like, slavering gangsters with outstretched arms? Do you remember resetting again and again and again until you got the correct gender of Blue Chocobo? Do you remember mashing the “O” button in a “bitchslap” fight between two women, one of whom is actually a competent martial artist, on the barrel of a giant cannon?
Remember Nibelheim Mansion? Oh, remember, remember the chilly green, briny undersea when you were piloting the submarine, and how you’d see the terrifying marine trails of Emerald Weapon drifting in the slick, dark distance? Remember when you’d come out of the sunken Gelnika and he’d be, like, right there?
Do you remember when she died?
How do you explain what this game is about, two decades on? You can't, because if you recall the particulars of Cloud’s story, you will remember the most important thing: Final Fantasy VII is fundamentally a game about how you cannot trust your memories. That’s what it’s about. The glory of your younger days might only be in your imagination.
Final Fantasy VII 1997 exceeds 15.5 million units sold worldwide as of February 2026, reinforcing its legacy as the series best selling title.
I’d love to know how many units have been sold of all the Final Fantasy VII franchise games, including the original, the remakes, spin offs such as Crisis Core, and mobile games Ever Crisis. I bet a fair few copies.
Modern day publisher be like: "Failed to meet sales expectations. Pivoting to live service."
It's an absolute legend of a game. And I honestly really love how the remake trilogy is shaping up so far.
Final Fantasy 7 is one of the most iconic video games of all time, with it helping to changed the RPG landscape when it was released in 1997.
If you already own it... There, I saved you the click on a deliberately misleading article.
I bought the game yesterday on steam for $4 because Square Enix is trying to replace it with a version that has no mod support.
Prior to yesterday, I had no idea the game had so many great mods until people started making a fuss out of it.
u get the switch 1 version of the og ff7 for free if you own 7 remake for the switch 2.
lol.
But BG2 didn't emerge in a vacuum, and in a recent chat with Slandered Gaming it emerged that—while we can thank BG2 for a lot of our favourite RPGs since—we have a whole other game to thank for BG2. That'd be Final Fantasy 7, which lit a fire under BG2 director James Ohlen to go all out with the game's structure and companions, per Trent Oster—who worked on the original Baldur's Gate and has since become CEO of Beamdog, the studio behind the BG1 and BG2 Enhanced Editions.
Baldurs Gate 1&2 were my games back in the day on PC. Icewindale and Neverwinter Nights as well
now final fantasy's biggest problem will always be trying to live up to final fantasy 7
the thing with 7 is that it had the biggest marketing campaign for a game ever at that point, 100 million dollars was unheard of back then (and still ranks in the top 5 all time). Its a great game, but most people in the know dont regard it as the best final fantasy.